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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puborectalis who wrote (783489)

5/5/2014 10:42:57 AM

From: Brumar89

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Respond to of 1578125

“Star-Studded” ObamaCare Celebration Features No Stars

May 4, 2014 by Daniel Greenfield 9 Comments

Politico is reporting that the ObamaCare celebration was a star-studded event. Even in the imaginary universe that the left’s media corps permanently resides in, in which Barack Obama is a genius, Michelle Obama is the most beautiful woman in America and ObamaCare is wildly popular, this is a star-studded event with no stars.

It had less stars than most Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

President Barack Obama celebrated the completion of the first open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act with a star-studded reception at the White House on Thursday.

“Nashville” actress Connie Britton, former “Blossom” star and current “The Big Bang Theory” star Mayim Bialik and Bill Nye the Science Guy were among those on hand, as were Vice President Joe Biden, departing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and other Cabinet members.

See stars such as…. Bill Nye the Science Guy, Joe Biden and Mayim Bialik. But wait the star-studded cast also included mega-celebs like…

Other celebrities on hand included Adam Scott of “Parks and Recreation,” actor and former White House staffer Kal Penn and actress Aisha Tyler. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Labor Secretary Tom Perez also attended.

It’s like Oscar night if it was held at Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab.

Obama used to be able to draw top music and movie stars. Now all he could get was a bunch of people who appear somewhere on television.They’re not, for the most part, the stars of anything.

Most of them are sidekicks. Which seems appropriate.

So what went wrong? Why couldn’t Katy Perry or George Clooney make it? Because they might be moonbats but even they don’t want to be associated with the ObamaCare Party.

Just like no network wanted to air it.

With limited exceptions, stars have largely failed to participate in a substantial ad campaign to promote Obama-Care’s new coverage options.

To date, the only noteworthy celebrities appearing on behalf of ObamaCare in national ads are retired NBA players Magic Johnson and Alonzo Mourning, who left professional basketball in 1991 and 2009, respectively.

And no, Magic didn’t show up to this clown show. He was too busy giving his 20th interview whining about Sterling.

Contrary to expectations, the White House’s A-list backers have mainly stuck to Twitter to voice support for ObamaCare, while others have appeared in inexpensive online videos, or chosen to promote California’s insurance marketplace instead of HealthCare.gov, the notoriously troubled website for the federal exchanges.

It seems that not even the president’s most fervent and committed supporters want to get too close to ObamaCare. Some of Obama’s most powerful allies — figures including Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Springsteen and Beyoncé — have stayed in the wings for the enrollment push.

Why put themselves out on the line when they can just let their assistants tweet #GetCovered so they still get invited to White House parties.

So instead the ObamaCare celebration had to settle for Adam Scott, who was also one of the few celebs to show up to the Demand a Plan event.

Basically if you put food out, Adam Scott will show up at your house.

He’s clearly not picky.

Kal Penn will show up everywhere Obama goes for reasons best left unexplored. And Mayim Bialik is what happens when no other member of the cast of Big Bang Theory will show up to your event.

Can’t get the Indian guy? Uh okay. How about Mayim. She’ll need a ride though.

But who needs stars when you’ve got Kathleen Sebelius?

Obama also offered a shoutout to the people who worked on HealthCare.gov and other technical aspects, leading a “tech team! tech team!” chant.

It was either that or “$800 million down the hole”.

Local officials including Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn and Kansas City, Kansas Mayor Mark Holland attended, as did a small contingent of ACA supporters from Texas, including state Sen. Garnet Coleman and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.

So this was basically the saddest party ever.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/star-studded-obamacare-celebration-features-no-stars/

To: puborectalis who wrote (783489)

5/5/2014 11:40:20 AM

From: koan

Respond to of 1578125

Very good and right on!!

"Last week, House Republicans released a deliberately misleading report on the status of health reform, crudely rigging the numbers to sustain the illusion of failure in the face of unexpected success. Are you shocked?

You aren’t, but you should be. Mainstream politicians didn’t always try to advance their agenda through lies, damned lies and — in this case — bogus statistics. And the fact that this has become standard operating procedure for a major party bodes ill for America’s future.

About that report: The really big policy news of 2014, at least so far, is the spectacular recovery of the Affordable Care Act from its stumbling start, thanks to an extraordinary late surge that took enrollment beyond early projections. The age mix of enrollees has improved; insurance companies are broadly satisfied with the risk pool. Multiple independent surveys confirm that the percentage of Americans without health insurance has already declined substantially, and there’s every reason to believe that over the next two years the act will meet its overall goals, except in states that refuse to expand Medicaid.

This is a problem for Republicans, who have bet the ranch on the proposition that health reform is an unfixable failure. “Nobody can make Obamacare work,” declared Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, a couple of weeks ago (when it was already obvious that it was working pretty well). How can they respond to good news?

Well, they could graciously admit that they were wrong, and offer constructive suggestions about how to make the law work even better. Oh, sorry — I forgot that I wasn’t writing jokes for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

No, they have in fact continued to do what they’ve been doing ever since the news on Obamacare started turning positive: sling as much mud as possible at health reform, in the hope that some of it sticks. Premiums were soaring, they declared, when they have actually come in below projections. Millions of people were losing coverage, they insisted, when the great bulk of those whose policies were canceled simply replaced them with new policies. The Obama administration was cooking the books, they cried (projection, anyone?). And, of course, they keep peddling horror stories about people suffering terribly from Obamacare, not one of which has actually withstood scrutiny.

Now comes the latest claim — that many of the people who signed up for insurance aren’t actually paying their premiums. Obviously this claim is part of a continuing pattern. It also, however, involves a change in tactics. Previous attacks on Obamacare were pretty much fact-free; this time the claim was backed by an actual survey purporting to show that a third of enrollees hadn’t paid their first premium.

But the survey was rigged. (Are you surprised?) It asked insurers how many enrollees had paid their first premium; it ignored the fact that the first premium wasn’t even due for the millions of people who signed up for insurance after March 15.

And the fact that the survey was so transparently rigged is a smoking gun, proving that the attacks on Obamacare aren’t just bogus; they’re deliberately bogus. The staffers who set up that survey knew enough about the numbers to skew them, which meant that they have to have known that Obamacare is actually doing O.K.

First of all, it fires up the base. After this latest exercise in deception, we can be fairly sure that Republican leaders know perfectly well that Obamacare has failed to fail. But the party faithful don’t. Like anyone who writes about these issues, I get vast amounts of mail from people who know, just know, that insurance premiums are skyrocketing, that far more people have lost insurance because of Obummercare than have gained it, that all the horror stories are real, and that anyone who says otherwise is just a liberal shill.

Beyond that, the constant harping on alleged failure works as innuendo even if each individual claim collapses in the face of evidence. A recent pollby the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a majority of Americans know that more than eight million people enrolled in health exchanges; but it also found a majority of respondents believing that this was below expectations, and that the law was working badly.

So Republicans are spreading disinformation about health reform because it works, and because they can — there is no sign that they pay any political price when their accusations are proved false.

And that observation should scare you. What happens to the Congressional Budget Office if a party that has learned that lying about numbers works takes full control of Congress? What happens if it regains the White House, too? Nothing good, that’s for sure.